Being a clergyman's son and thus not allowed to attend the Erweiterte Oberschule in the GDR, he received secondary education at a gymnasium in the western part of Berlin.

[1] After his Abitur he jobbed inter alia as assembler, bookseller and assistant director.

Upon graduation, he became a dramatic adviser at the Volksbühne in Berlin, where he worked as a resident writer from 1974.

[1] According to Hein, the acclaimed film drama The Lives of Others is loosely based on his life story.

In a 2019 article, he claims that after attending the premiere screening, he asked author and director von Donnersmarck to have his name removed from the credits, because he felt that the movie was a "scary tale taking place in a fantasy land, comparable to Tolkien's Middle-earth," that "does not depict the 1980s in the GDR".